UNITED STATES OF EVERYWHERE
Michael J. Totten links to a strange column by Sean LaFreniere, who suggests what Don Snow terms “the 51st State Solution” for solving our woes with Old Europe:
If Europe wants to raise its international stature, wishes to unify into a larger body inclusive of all of Western Civilization, and wishes to have a stake in the US presidency. . . then why don’t they apply for admission to the Union? If American and European society are as intertwined as Dale suggests: “In many respects the Atlantic is shrinking and European and American societies are not drifting apart but colliding. The Atlantic is becoming more and more of a common social and political space. [And] more Europeans than ever before speak English, including in France”; then why not “tie the knot” and be done with all this pre-marital bickering?
Other than the fact they have no interest in joining the Union and the fact that they’d outnumber the existing US population and immediately impose their brand of socialism on us, sending our economy into ruin and destroying the United States as we know it, I can’t think of a single reason.
Michael has returned from vacation, by the way, and wants you to visit him to get his traffic back up.
Thanks for the linkage James. 😉
Crazy? Sure. But then so was buying Alaska.
Do keep in mind that most EU nations are VERY pro-American and eager to succede at Capitalism. I say most, not the largest.
If France and Germany still think they can make the Socialist thing work… (although health care for an aging population shakes their confidence), others, like Poland, have much more interest in our way of doing things.
So, if you admit the EU states one at a time you might find that the ballance of power would remain pretty balanced. Meanwhile France wouldnt hate the rest of the Union any more than say some Southern states, Vermont, or parts of California.
Read my post and the articles that I link to and think about it over a beer. If you need to, have two beers (Guiness, of course).
Cheers, Sean
—